Supercool

Mass Timber is growing fast—expanding from a handful of commercial wood buildings in the U.S. just over a decade ago to more than 2,000 today, with 24,000 projected by 2034. Once considered niche, mass timber is moving mainstream—competing on price, speed, and domestic supply chains, not sustainability alone.

Sterling Structural is leading that shift. As the world's largest CLT manufacturer, the company produces one cross-laminated timber panel every 65 seconds, sourcing 100% of its wood from domestic sawmills. Sterling has recently produced its one millionth panel.

This is mass timber for the masses—standardized, modular systems that contra...

Clean power has never been cheaper. So why are electricity bills rising—and what's blocking faster deployment?

Jigar Shah joins Supercool to explain why 2025 marked a turning point: for the first time in history, essentially 100% of new electricity demand worldwide was met by solar, wind, and nuclear. It happened because the same solutions that solve climate change are winning on affordability.

But deployment could be moving much faster. The technology is proven. The finance exists. The barrier is political: governors and mayors don’t realize the leverage they have over utilities, and utility CEOs won’t act...

In 2025, the U.S. president called climate change a hoax. Meanwhile, global clean energy investment hit a record $2.2 trillion. Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter covering climate and energy for Bloomberg. His read on the past year: China is becoming the modern Standard Oil. The same way Rockefeller's empire exported petroleum infrastructure globally, China is now exporting electrification—solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, grid tech, project finance—to countries racing to modernize their economies. Pakistan imported solar equal to half its grid capacity in twelve months. And Ethiopia went from zero to 7% EV market share. Developing countries treat electricity like...

In this end-of-year conversation, David Roberts, a renowned climate and clean energy journalist, lays out his headline for 2025: the rapid growth of AI data centers has forced long-delayed decisions about the power system. After two decades of mostly flat U.S. electricity demand, utilities are now facing sharp new load growth, tighter timelines, and major uncertainty—making grid capacity and interconnection central challenges.

Roberts, who hosts and writes the Volts podcast and newsletter, argues that long-lead solutions like new nuclear power plants are poorly matched to this moment. The fastest, lowest-cost capacity available today comes from distributed re...

Real estate companies say they want sustainability. They'll pay for it too, provided it comes with zero risk.

Brad Pilgrim is co-founder & CEO of Parity, a remote HVAC optimization service for high-rises and hotels. Its customer team can walk into a building, spend 90 minutes going from the basement to roof, and tell the owner how much energy they can save—then guarantee it. After eight years, clients like AvalonBay—one of the largest multifamily REITs in the country—are seeing 20-30% cuts in HVAC costs with payback in one to two years.

Brad joins Supercool to dis...

EVs for commercial fleets are increasingly attractive. Battery costs are down, range is up, and in many cases the total cost of ownership already beats gas. The problem isn’t the vehicles. It’s where they’ll charge.

Voltera takes on the part of the EV transition most people never see: procuring the right real estate, securing stadium-scale power capacity, navigating zoning codes that rarely recognize EV charging as a primary use, and getting sign-off—sometimes from more than a dozen city departments—just to get started.

Voltera CEO Brett Hauser joins Josh to show how the co...

Something big is happening inside buildings. They’re getting brains.

Schneider Electric is a global giant in energy and building performance—nearly two centuries old, operating across 100+ countries, and already embedded in a million buildings. Manish Kumar, EVP of Digital Energy, joins me to unpack what it means when AI starts running the places we live and work. 

We dig into EcoStruxure Foresight, Schneider’s new AI assistant for buildings: a layer that links critical equipment, learns the rhythms of a space, flags waste in real time, and helps facility teams interact with their buildings as perf...

There are trillions of dollars of clean energy projects ready to be built—and trillions more in capital waiting to fund them. But the system connecting the two is too slow, fragmented, and expensive.

That gap is what Alfred Johnson set out to close. A former Treasury official who helped steer markets through the 2008 financial crisis and later served under Janet Yellen, Johnson co-founded Crux to build the financial software layer the energy transition was missing.

Crux connects developers, manufacturers, and investors across a marketplace for clean energy finance. In just two years, it’s clos...

A few months ago, Quilt became the first company in residential HVAC history to deliver an over-the-air upgrade—making its systems 20% more powerful overnight.

Quilt is rethinking how homes heat and cool themselves. Its software-driven, ductless HVAC system combines intelligent controls, high-efficiency heat pumps, and a design language that fits seamlessly into modern architecture. By bringing the pace and polish of consumer technology to an overlooked industry, Quilt transforms comfort into a catalyst for electrification.

Founder and CEO Paul Lambert joins Josh Dorfman to share how Quilt’s approach—what he calls “technical arbitrage”—adapts proven innov...

In an industry that moved fast and defied cities, Veo chose a different path: partnership over disruption. Co-founder and CEO Candice Xie is building one of the only profitable micromobility companies in America by leading with discipline, transparency, and respect for the people shaping urban life. While competitors flooded streets and flamed out, Veo continues to earn trust — winning 90% of city RFPs and operating in over 50 markets nationwide. Candice joins Josh Dorfman to unpack how Veo’s strategy of asking for permission, designing durable hardware, and prioritizing community needs became its true growth engine. This is a masterclass in scal...

Husk Power Systems operates the largest fleet of community-level clean-energy minigrids in the world—over 400 sites across India and Nigeria. Each system combines solar, battery storage, and biomass generation into a modular platform called PRISM, engineered to deploy and power an entire village within 24 hours. Behind the technology is an AI-driven operating system that forecasts demand, manages generation in real time, and keeps every site running autonomously. Co-founder and CEO Manoj Sinha shares how Husk plans to scale to 5,000 minigrids by 2030—delivering reliable, renewable power to millions and redefining what energy access means at civilization’s edge.

Show N...

SolarCycle is building the next supply chain that makes the clean energy transition possible. Co-founder Jesse Simons spent two decades at the Sierra Club leading national campaigns to accelerate renewable energy before seeing the constraint built into solar’s own success. There aren’t enough raw materials to keep scaling, and communities are starting to resist projects without end-of-life plans.

With a deep bench of industry founders, operators, and visionaries, SolarCycle is closing that loop. They’ve developed technology to extract glass, aluminum, copper, silicon, and silver from old panels—and the reverse logistics to move them efficien...

Ken LaRoe has done what no one else in U.S. history has: founded three banks. His first two were financial successes. His third—Climate First Bank—is his answer to unfinished business. Built to align money with mission, it’s now America’s fastest-growing new bank, surpassing $1.4 billion in assets while financing the clean energy economy.

In this episode, Ken shares what he learned across 25 years of banking—why financial performance and climate action can’t be opposites, and how being, in his words, a “rabid environmentalist and rabid capitalist” became his edge. He explains how Climate First’s...

Cambium is building the operating system for reuse—a digital supply chain connecting the fragmented network of companies needed to turn fallen trees into finished goods.

Every year, tens of millions of urban trees come down. The scale is staggering, and most end up chipped, burned, or buried. Cambium links tree-removal crews, haulers, mills, and end customers through a unified digital platform—transforming what was once waste into market-ready material.

Today, more than 500 companies across the U.S. and Canada coordinate each tree’s journey, forming a just-in-time network for reclaimed wood.

Co-founder and CE...

AI, electrification, decarbonization—they all hinge on how effectively the grid is orchestrated. Yet thousands of clean energy projects are stuck in U.S. interconnection queues. The backlog is twice the size of all the energy we use today. It’s not a cost problem. It’s the grid—the largest machine on earth—built last century for stability and missing the cloud-scale infrastructure to handle what’s ahead.

Astrid Atkinson has run a machine like this before. At Google, she spent fifteen years in site reliability engineering, keeping Search, Maps, YouTube, and Gmail online with 99.999% uptime. If google.co...

Curbside charging sounds obvious—plug in outside your apartment, wake up to a full battery. Yet more than 40 million potential urban EV owners are still waiting for someone to figure it out.

it’s electric, co-founded by Tiya Gordon, is designing EV charging for cities—making curbside charging possible by inventing what didn’t exist: hardware powered directly by buildings, a revenue model that pays property owners, and a way to work with cities that clears the path to install. Its chargers are already operational in Boston, Detroit, and San Francisco, with more cities on the way.

Tiy...

By fusing architect and developer, Alloy Development is proving that the riskiest choice in real estate isn’t electrification or Passive House — it’s clinging to the past.

CEO Jared Della Valle joins Supercool to share the company’s journey to developing The Alloy Block in downtown Brooklyn—aiming to create the most sustainable block in the city. It’s anchored by 505 State Street, New York’s first all-electric skyscraper; two Passive House–certified public schools; and soon, One Third Avenue—the tallest Passive House tower in the world.

Della Valle describes how Alloy built investor confidenc...

Mike Faherty grew up surfing the Jersey Shore, surrounded by coastal style but chasing something that felt more enduring. Even as a kid, he obsessed over fabrics—the way silk ties carried weight, how colors layered, how clothes gained character through texture. By seventeen, he had already mapped the outlines of the brand he wanted to build.

In 2012, he launched Faherty with his twin brother Alex and sister-in-law Kerry—creating a clothing company rooted in surf culture, elevated by craft, and grounded in responsibility. Today, it's grown into one of the most distinctive brands in American fashion—80+ stores...

Forum Mobility is electrifying how America moves freight. Every year, more than 30,000 diesel 18-wheelers haul containers in and out of California’s ports, logging over a billion miles, generating enormous carbon emissions and polluting nearby communities.

Electric semis are powerful, quiet, and clean. But at $500,000 apiece with uncertain charging and maintenance, the math doesn’t work for the independent operators — often family-run businesses — who move most containers from port to warehouse, the first mile of logistics known as drayage. The technology is ready. The adoption is stuck.

In 2024, Forum Mobility opened the world’s largest port-based...

Most U.S. homes aren’t wired for electrified living, even though the clean energy future depends on it. Upgrading panels and wiring can cost thousands before a single new appliance is even installed.

Plus, consumers aren’t demanding electrification. They want lifestyle upgrades—faster, more precise cooking, backup power in a pinch, and appliances that cost less and perform more.

Copper has designed the solution. The company is building 21st-century appliances to work on 20th-century infrastructure, i.e., the aging grid we have today. No infrastructure upgrades necessary.

Charlie, their first electric applia...

Interface is a public company proving that carbon-negative is possible at scale. The billion-dollar flooring brand has more than 400 carbon-negative products on the market today and a plan to take its entire business carbon-negative by 2040. Liz Minne, Head of Global Sustainability Strategy, shares how Interface is operationalizing that ambition through product innovation, supply chain engagement, and a culture that keeps climate goals at the center of business decisions. She discusses what it means to lead as a public company, how to translate climate targets into everyday execution, and why culture may be Interface’s most important competitive edge. Interface sh...

At Amazon, speed isn’t a carbon cost—it’s a carbon advantage. The company now runs 30,000 electric delivery vehicles, delivered 1.5 billion packages on battery power last year, and has built over 600 renewable energy projects in more than 20 countries—20 gigawatts of clean energy capacity, making it the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable power.

Inside that scale is a playbook for how a global business operationalizes decarbonization without slowing down. Chris Roe, Amazon’s Director of Worldwide Environment for Carbon, and Chris Atkins, Director of Worldwide Operations for Sustainability, share how speed has become a lever for lower em...

For fifty years, Brompton has been the most iconic name in urban cycling. Engineered and made in London, beloved by city riders, and still unrivaled in how fast it folds and how good it feels to ride.

But in the U.S., where biking is still mostly recreational and folding bikes barely register, the brand faces a different challenge: how to scale a joy-filled, performance-driven mobility tool in a market that doesn’t know it needs it.

Juliet Scott-Croxford, President of the Americas, is modernizing everything around the fold—retail, product, e-commerce, community—while keeping the co...

To scale climate solutions, you have to know how to talk about them. The companies driving climate adoption don’t just offer better solutions—they tell better stories. Stories that reframe clean energy as the smarter, cheaper, everyday choice. Stories that win customers, sway skeptics, and shift markets.

Keith Zakheim has spent two decades working with climate brands to sharpen their strategy and scale their message. As CEO of Antenna Group, he’s shaped the public narrative around clean energy, circular economy, and climate tech adoption—long before those terms entered the mainstream lexicon.

Keith joins Jo...

Industrial hemp always had believers. What it lacked was a supply chain. Hempitecture is changing that—starting with the first commercial-scale factory in the U.S. making high-performance home insulation from hemp.

Headquartered in Idaho, the company has shipped to 5,000+ customers across 48 states. It’s now the largest buyer of industrial hemp fiber in North America—proving that a crop once sidelined by regulation and volatility can power a fast-growing manufacturing business.

In this episode, co-founder Tommy Gibbons shares the operational playbook: how Hempitecture proved its insulation performs, raised capital through crowdfunding when venture capital didn’t...

Consumers want the upgrades. The climate does too. But the electrical panel in the garage stands in the way.

EVs, heat pumps, induction stoves—electrification is becoming more attractive. The products are faster, cleaner, cheaper to run. But nearly 48 million U.S. homes still rely on outdated 100-amp service. That means expensive utility upgrades, long delays, and a halt to progress.

Arch Rao, former Tesla Energy product lead, built Span to fix the bottleneck. The Span Panel replaces the old breaker box with a connected, intelligent device that lets homeowners add electric appliances without triggering a...

America invented the clean energy future. Now it may be dismantling it, just as the rest of the world hits the accelerator.

The U.S. was first. The first silicon solar cell in New Jersey. The first wind turbine in Cleveland. The first microinverter in a California garage.

But now it’s China scaling the clean energy transition—building factories, locking in supply chains, and racing toward a low-carbon economy at industrial speed.

In the U.S., the president just signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law—gutting the historic clean energy investments at the...

TerraCycle takes on waste the rest of the world ignores—cigarette butts, diapers, pharmaceutical blister packs.

But what makes the model work isn’t what they recycle. It’s how they get companies to pay for it.

Even with one of the boldest missions in climate tech—eliminate the idea of waste—TerraCycle doesn’t lead with sustainability. It leads with the business case.

In this episode, CEO Tom Szaky shares with host Josh Dorfman how the company has grown for 23 straight years by solving a problem no one wanted: how to make recycling ha...

When Roger Griffiths first heard about Formula E in 2014, he was intrigued but skeptical. A veteran of IndyCar, Le Mans, and Formula 1—and a self-described petrol head—he wasn’t convinced electric racing could deliver credible performance.

Then he saw who was signing on.

Michael Andretti. Alain Prost. Emerson Fittipaldi. Frank Williams. Plus early backers like Richard Branson. Racing legends and global brands were putting their reputations behind an all-electric series built for city streets, digital-native fans, and a new kind of mobility.

That’s when Roger knew: failure wasn’t an option.

He jo...

Grid battery storage has gone from niche to necessary. Fast. Projects that were once 300 megawatt-hours are now hitting 9 gigawatt-hours. And companies like Wärtsilä are leading the charge, taking on the hardest, highest-stakes deployments around the world.

In this episode, Dave Hebert, VP of Global Sales & Business Strategy for Wärtsilä's Energy Storage division, takes us inside the systems powering the clean energy transition. Wärtsilä has deployed over 17 gigawatt-hours of storage—enough to power millions of homes for hours at a time—across more than 130 projects worldwide. Many of these are first-of-a-kind systems built in remote des...

Jaime Pumarejo helped lead Barranquilla, Colombia, through a stunning transition. When he first joined the city’s government in his twenties, Barranquilla was under bankruptcy protection, poverty was high, and public trust was fractured. Today, it serves as a global model for how climate action can drive economic growth, attract investment, and deliver tangible benefits to people’s lives.

In 2020, when Pumarejo became mayor, he accelerated the transformation. He established a public-private tree company to enhance property values, increase tax revenue, and enhance climate resilience. Delivered 300 parks co-designed by residents. Made biodiversity and eco-tourism part of the city...

The energy grid we know today was built for a different era—centralized generation, one-way power flow, no rooftop solar, no EVs, no AI-driven demand. If Thomas Edison were alive, he’d recognize it instantly. And that’s the problem.

Raghu Belur bet the system would have to change. In 2006, he co-founded Enphase Energy and started from the distributed edge, designing a microinverter that made every solar panel smart, efficient, and self-reliant.

That foundation became the starting point for a new kind of energy system—built to turn homes into mini power plants and partners to the g...

If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter, right behind the United States and China, accounting for 8-10% of global carbon emissions. It’s a staggering problem: 30% of all food produced globally goes to waste. And for supermarkets already operating on razor-thin margins, that waste translates into billions of dollars lost every year.

At the heart of the problem? A broken pricing model. Food hits an arbitrary sell-by date—and it’s trashed.

Oded Omer thought that was absurd. So he built Wasteless, an AI-powered platform that helps grocers sell more food b...

Before becoming the youngest elected mayor in Quito’s history, Mauricio Rodas had already founded a political party, launched a think tank in Mexico City, and run for president.

In 1944, when the global financial system was designed, just 29% of the world lived in cities. Today, that number has nearly doubled to 56%. Cities now account for more than 70% of global emissions and 80% of energy consumption—yet most still can’t access the capital they need to fund climate solutions. The system, built at the tail end of World War II, wasn’t made for them.

Mauricio Rodas kn...

Circularity isn’t just about keeping t-shirts and jeans out of landfills. Done right, it’s a growth engine for brands. That’s exactly what Trove is building: the recommerce technology that drives margins, attracts new customers, and streamlines operations.

As the resale platform behind Patagonia, Levi’s, Brooks, Arc'teryx, Carhartt, and Canada Goose, Trove helps brands give their products a second, third, even fourth life—while driving profitable growth.

For CEO Terry Boyle, an e-commerce veteran of major shopping sites like Nordstromrack.com, Zulily, HauteLook, and Trunk Club, circularity was never going to scale on sustain...

As mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees helped launch a billion-pound public-private partnership to decarbonize his city, one of the most ambitious deals of its kind anywhere in the world.

This wasn’t just about climate targets. It was about results: cutting emissions, cutting energy bills, creating jobs, and improving housing — all while building a long-term investment model that gave private partners confidence and gave residents real benefits they could feel.

When Marvin started, the city had no budget, limited staff, and a local government still reeling from years of austerity. So he got creative. He turn...

Rare earth magnets power the modern world and the clean energy transition. They’re inside every electric vehicle motor, wind turbine, MRI machine, and computer hard drive in a data center. But the world throws most of them away. Less than 1% are ever recycled. And today, China controls nearly 90% of the global supply.

That’s the crisis Cyclic Materials was built to solve — by turning circularity into industrial reality.

In this episode, co-founder and CEO Ahmad Ghahreman explains how his team figured out what the industry long thought impossible: separating rare earth magnets from steel before...

It took over a century to build today’s power grid. Now we need to triple its capacity by 2050. Why? Because demand is surging, and a net-zero future depends on a bigger, smarter, and cleaner grid. Electrification is transforming how we power transportation, buildings, industry, and data. Renewables are decentralized and intermittent. And the current grid, built for centralized fossil fuel power, wasn’t designed for what comes next.

Grid infrastructure is now one of the most urgent industrial and climate challenges of our time. Siemens Energy is at the forefront of solving it. Already, one-sixth of the...

Rondo Energy is building a renewable energy battery using bricks and toaster wire. But it’s not for your home—it’s for the factories that run the world. Industrial heat drives 10% of global carbon emissions. It’s essential for making steel, cement, chemicals, food, paper, and fuel. And it’s one of the hardest challenges in climate—expensive to electrify, risky to retrofit, and central to the global economy.

That’s what makes Rondo’s approach so powerful. In this episode, John O’Donnell, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, explains how Rondo stores excess wind and solar energy a...

Fifteen years ago, smart thermostats promised to save you money and learn your habits. Today, they—and other grid-connected devices and appliances—are forming the backbone of the most sustainable power plant on the grid.

Jeff Gleeson, Chief Product Officer of Renew Home, joins Josh to unpack how his team is transforming everyday home tech into a distributed, intelligent, always-on energy layer—one that cuts carbon, boosts grid resilience, and earns households money, all without asking homeowners to think much about it.

Jeff explains why the industry’s go-to term—“virtual power plant”—doesn’t resonate with cons...

Mike Martin helped launch the first climate change concert tour with Dave Matthews. He’s worked with Billie Eilish to flip venues vegan and wrote the green touring playbook years ago that artists still follow today.

But after decades trying to make recycling and compostables work at live events, Mike hit a wall. Zero-waste wasn’t working. Then he remembered what he saw on tour with U2 during the Joshua Tree run—European stadiums using reusable cups.

That moment sparked r.World, the reuse company now transforming how concerts, stadiums, and venues across the country are di...

Johnson Controls helped invent modern air conditioning. Now, it’s reengineering how buildings cut carbon — using AI and automation to make infrastructure smarter, cleaner, and more efficient.

Reuben Petty, Principal Digital Sales Engineer, works with business leaders, facility teams, and city officials to connect legacy systems to the digital tools of tomorrow. His focus is OpenBlue — the company’s platform that brings data and intelligence to the heart of building operations.

In this episode, we explore how a 140-year-old company is reinventing itself for a low-carbon future — and what it means for commercial real estate, city infra...

E-bikes are booming—nearly as many were sold in the U.S. last year as electric cars. But while EVs get the attention, e-bikes are quietly reshaping how people move, cutting emissions, making urban life easier, and recreation more fun.

The catch? Buying an e-bike is easy. Reselling one isn’t.

That’s where Upway comes in. They’re building the Carvana for e-bikes—a seamless resale marketplace with accessible pricing, warranties, home delivery, and easy returns. And the industry is taking notice.

This week, Max Renson, U.S. General Manager at Upway, joins us t...

How do you make solar adoption irresistible? By not selling solar.

This week on Supercool, we’re joined by Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, and Jessica Bergman, a marketing strategist who’s spent her career figuring out why clean energy adoption stalls—and how to fix it.

Under Mary’s leadership, Sunrun stopped being just a solar company and became something much bigger: a storage-first, customer-obsessed clean energy lifestyle brand. And it’s working—60%+ of customers now add batteries, turning their homes into mini power plants that keep the lights on when the grid goes down.<...

Supercool regularly speaks with innovators working at the intersection of business, technology, and climate—AI giving buildings brains, pneumatic tubes hauling away trash, and electric school buses optimizing routes. With so much climate momentum underway, how do we properly assess this moment?

Molly Wood has been tracking it from multiple angles. A veteran journalist (Wired, CNET, The New York Times, NPR’s Marketplace), she left media to invest in climate tech—then returned with Everybody in the Pool, a podcast and newsletter focused on climate solutions and the entrepreneurs, businesses, and products solving the climate crisis.

Toda...

Since 2018, GoodLeap has financed home solar, batteries, and efficiency upgrades at an unprecedented scale—serving over 1 million customers and originating more than $30 billion in financing for sustainable solutions.

Founder Hayes Barnard saw the bottleneck wasn’t price—it was friction. Homeowners needed fast, hassle-free financing. Contractors needed better tools to manage projects. GoodLeap built a technology platform to solve both—delivering a seamless, app-driven experience that puts financing, project management, and energy upgrades in the palm of your hand.

Now, GoodLeap is expanding into energy management. Homes won’t just consume power; they’ll contribute to the grid...

CannonDesign is building a reputation for designing buildings that eliminate carbon and improve lives. In 2024, Metropolis Magazine recognized the firm as its Planet Positive Firm of the Year for leading the way in net-zero architecture.

It wasn't always this way. As one of North America's largest and oldest firms, CannonDesign had the scale, heritage, and reputation—but no clear sustainability strategy. In 2019, they turned to Eric Corey Freed, one of the foremost voices in green architecture, to embed sustainability into every project and reframe the business case for net-zero buildings.

...

What if buildings could think for themselves—anticipating energy needs, preventing breakdowns, and adjusting to outside weather conditions in real-time? In this episode, we explore how BrainBox AI, a Montreal-based company, is making that a reality. Their cutting-edge technology powers over 15,000 buildings across 17 countries, using advanced artificial intelligence to take the guesswork out of building management. No more scrambling for last-minute repairs or manually adjusting systems—BrainBox AI predicts issues before they happen and fine-tunes operations automatically, giving maintenance technicians and facility managers more time to focus on what matters.

This isn’t just automation—it’s a new era...

Industrial heat is one of the biggest, most stubborn sources of carbon emissions—responsible for nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gases. High costs, complex retrofits, and tight margins keep manufacturers locked into fossil fuels. But what if there were a way to swap out natural gas boilers without costly disruptions or major infrastructure overhauls? That’s exactly what Brenmiller’s thermal energy storage (TES) technology offers. Chief Business Officer Doron Brenmiller explains how their heat battery—where energy is stored in crushed rocks—provides reliable, on-demand heat to seamlessly replace legacy systems. With industries from food processing to brewing em...

Best known as one of the industry's most efficient Bitcoin miners, TeraWulf is expanding into high-performance computing (HPC) data centers for AI. Critics slam AI and Bitcoin mining for their massive energy consumption, but TeraWulf challenges that narrative. Its operations run on 91% zero-carbon energy, mostly hydropower, proving energy-hungry computing doesn’t have to come at a climate cost.

Nazar Khan, TeraWulf’s co-founder and CTO, joins Josh to discuss building world-class AI infrastructure, the crossover between Bitcoin mining and HPC-AI, what DeepSeek’s rise signals for industry and society, and how TeraWulf is leading Bitcoin and AI into t...

Who is paying for the clean energy revolution? Today, we’re diving into the financial side of the transition—where the trillions of dollars needed to move civilization off fossil fuels and into a low-carbon future are coming from, and how these massive deals come together. Joining Josh is Britta Von Oesen, Partner and Managing Director at CRC-IB, the nation’s leading investment bank dedicated exclusively to financing the clean energy economy. CRC-IB has advised on over 350 deals worth $72 billion. Britta herself has led $15 billion in transactions and is one of the most influential leaders in renewable energy finance. She ta...

Every day, 27 million kids ride 500,000 school buses—the largest transit system in America. And yet, this 80-year-old relic is stuck in the past: buses are late, routes are inefficient, and parents have no clue where the bus is or when it’s coming. Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum, decided to fix it. All of it.

With real-time tracking, smarter routes, and electric buses, Zum has modernized student transportation for 4,000 schools, including the school districts of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston. In Oakland, Zum introduced the nation’s first fully electric school...

Budderfly is one of the fastest growing companies in America, with an unparalleled Energy-as-a-Service offering. For many small business owners, especially franchisees of the world's most recognizable fast food brands like Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC, Al Subbloie and team offer up to 40% energy savings and no-cost upgrades of HVAC, lighting, and refrigeration equipment. Solar panels? Why not? Budderfly won’t even charge to install all of this state-of-the-art infrastructure. With an offer too good for customers to refuse, Budderfly is on its way to becoming a billion-dollar company and bringing many of the most recognizable American brands al...

In 2009, Amit Gupta, a rising executive at Carrier, the global HVAC company, discovered a neglected technology inside the company called Aeroseal. It used aerosol particles to seal air leaks in building envelopes and air ducts—offering a simple yet powerful way to tackle a major problem: the 10% of global energy wasted due to leaks. Seeing its potential, Amit took a leap. In 2010, he left his corporate career, rebooted Aeroseal as a startup, and focused on what matters most to customers: lowering energy bills, improving indoor air quality, and creating comfortable spaces. Today, with backing from world-class climate tech investors, in...

In 2014, Gundersen Health, headquartered in La Crosse, Wisconsin, became the nation's first health system to eliminate fossil fuels, transitioning to 100% local renewable energy. Today, the high-growth Gundersen saves $5 million annually on energy, helping to control healthcare costs for its patient populations across 11 hospitals and 100+ clinics in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. Gundersen merged with Bellin Health in 2022 to become Emplify Health. Alan Eber led the effort at Gundersen. Today, as CEO of Eneration, Eber's job is to show the rest of the healthcare industry how to pursue a clean, low-carbon, renewable energy future. Alan joins Josh to share the...

Cities have nowhere to go but down to tap new sources of emissions-free, clean energy, harden assets against climate impacts, cut operational costs, and enhance urban life for their residents above. In this end-of-year episode, we're delving into the emergence of the underground climate economy, a Supercool trend we've identified after completing our first 20 episodes since launching in July.

Whether eliminating curbside trash pickup by sending out trash through pneumatic tubes below streets, recovering wasted heat from water sloshing through sewer pipes, or drilling down to tap geothermal energy, the fate of cities and our civilization increasingly...

Iowa generates enough wind power to meet 77% of its energy demand. That's great for combating climate change and financially beneficial for local farmers, towns, and the overall economy. Discover how Iowa rose to wind energy prominence. We're joined by Chaz Allen, former Mayor of Newton, Iowa, and current Executive Director of the Iowa Utility Association. We also speak with Kathy Law, a farmer turned corporate attorney and one of the leading wind energy dealmakers in the state.

Notes

Guests:
1. Chaz Allen, Executive Director, Iowa Utility Association
2. Kathy Law,  Attorney, Nyemaster Goode Law F...

Even the most innovative climate tech startups face marketing challenges. To gain traction or raise capital, they must generate brand awareness, educate the market, and build trust with prospective customers in a race against time before their funds run out. Companies that go bold in their climate communications stand a stronger chance of standing out in a "sea of same." That's the advice of this week's guest, Adam Malik, co-founder of Bloxspring, a marketing agency for visionary brands radically changing the future of our buildings, cities, and the planet.

NOTES

Guest: Adam Malik, Co-founder

Ned Tozun co-founded d.light in 2007 with a mission to provide safe, affordable, and sustainable energy solutions for all. Seventeen years later, d.light's solar products have improved the lives of over 180 million people across 72 countries, with major operations in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. The company employs 1,200 people and tens of thousands of local sales agents to bring its innovative products to remote, rural communities. Ned joins Supercool to share how the business has effectively scaled around the world as it races to impact one billion people by 2030.

Show Notes

Guest: Ned Tozun...

What moves people to ditch their cars and use their own feet? The key, says Jeff Speck, is that the walk must be as good as a drive. Jeff wrote the book on walkability—literally. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time is the best-selling city-planning title of the 21st century. On today’s show, Jeff presents the playbook for creating walkable neighborhoods and cities, the maddening obstacles standing in the way, and how to clear the path—one thoughtful step at a time.

Show Notes

Guest: Jeff Speck, FAICP...

In just two years since the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) became U.S. law, the clean energy economy has been on a tear: $380B in new investment by companies; 900 new and expanded manufacturing facilities; and clean energy jobs growing at twice the rate of conventional jobs (4.2% vs 2%). Joining Josh to discuss these supercool accomplishments is David Turk, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. As the DOE’s second-in-command and Chief Operating Officer, David has played a key role in implementing President Biden’s landmark clean energy legislation.

Show Notes

Guest: David Turk, Depu...

Bitcoin mining faces frequent criticism in climate circles for its voracious energy appetite. But what if that narrative is over-generalized or maybe even entirely misses the mark? Joining Josh is Matthew Schultz, the founding CEO and current Executive Chairman of CleanSpark, a publicly traded Bitcoin miner with nearly 5% market share of new Bitcoin. CleanSpark operates predominantly using nuclear energy in rural communities throughout America. Tune in to discover how CleanSpark blends clean energy with cryptocurrency to forge a sustainable future.

Show Links

Guest: Matthew Schultz, Executive Chairman

Company: CleanSpark | America's Bitcoin Miner

Kathy Hannun began incubating within Google X, the startup that would become Dandelion, a home geothermal energy company that today is the largest and fastest-growing in America. With several thousand residential installations completed in the Northeast, Dandelion is scaling nationally, partnering with installers and homebuilding giants like Lennar. Carbon-free geothermal energy is about to become the default heating and cooling source for thousands of American homes.

Show Links:

Guest: Kathy Hannun

Company: Dandelion Energy

For more Supercool climate solutions that cut carbon, improve modern life, and shape the new low...

While saving the Amazon grabs headlines, the trees right outside your front door shape your life in important ways. The more trees in your city neighborhood, the less crime, the fewer prescriptions for antidepressants, and the lower rates of asthma, childhood leukemia, and other immune diseases. These leafy giants affect everything from healthier newborns to longer life expectancy to higher property values.  Geoffrey Donovan, an urban forester and economist with the U.S. Forest Service, joins the show. His groundbreaking research over the two decades is reshaping how urban planners and policymakers think about the essential public health and e...

Garbage trucks have gone missing in cities around the world. In neighborhoods from London to Barcelona and Singapore to Seoul, their unmistakable sight, sound, and smell are notably absent. The reason? Trash has gone underground, whisked away through a hidden network of pneumatic pipes—no trucks, no noise, no stench. If this sounds like the future, it is. But this particular slice was invented in the 1960s by Swedish company Envac. The company’s CEO, Joakim Karlsson, joins Supercool to discuss how Envac is taking trash removal to a whole new dimension.

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Guest: Joak...

Marshall Gobuty didn’t set out to build green when he became a real estate developer in his 50s. After a successful career in the clothing and furnishings industries, he sought to establish credibility in Florida’s competitive housing market. LEED certification presented the perfect opportunity. But Gobuty didn’t stop at meeting the minimum. His first project, Mirabella, became the first LEED Platinum Certified residential community in the U.S. His next development, Hunters Point, became the first LEED Zero Energy Certified community in the world. Sometimes, it takes an outsider to push an industry beyond its norms and co...

Fresh out of grad school, Kyle Wagenschutz was hired by the mayor of Memphis, TN, and given a daunting task: prevent the city from being named the "Worst Place to Bicycle in America" by Bicycling Magazine for a third year in a row. Kyle succeeded. Five years (and over a hundred miles of bike lanes) later, Memphis was recognized as a national leader, and Kyle was honored at the White House as a Champion of Change. Kyle took his insights to other cities and accomplished the near impossible: he enabled them to build safe, convenient, protected bike lanes in...

Stanford professor Mark Jacobson wasn’t just dreaming of a world powered by renewable energy back in 2009—he was doing the math and architecting the plan. Jacobson teamed up with actor-turned-eco-hero Mark Ruffalo to co-found The Solutions Project with a mission to transition the world to 100% renewables by 2035.  As Jacobson's vision took root, states and cities began making 100% renewable pledges. By 2019, his idea had reached Capitol Hill when AOC and Senator Markey introduced the Green New Deal. Jacobson’s message? We can pull it off, it’ll save us trillions, and spare millions of lives. Plus, if you’re lucky enoug...

At Holabird Academy and Graceland Park, two net-zero energy Baltimore public schools, the future is already in session. Solar panels line the roofs, geothermal wells lie below the ballfields, and energy-efficient features keep these buildings running entirely on renewable power. But while these schools are a win for the planet, the real story is how they’re transforming the lives of everyone who steps inside—students, teachers, administrators, and the surrounding community. Stephanie Novak Pappas, the award-winning Principal of Holabird Academy, joins the conversation along with Amy Upton, Director of Environmental Design and Principal at Grimm & Parker Architects, the visi...

Cities are in a race against time to cut carbon, and the stakes are high. Responsible for 70% of global emissions, urban centers around the world are stepping up. At the heart of this global movement are mayors. Through C40 Cities—a network of nearly 100 leading cities—mayors are sharing, learning, and spreading the most effective climate solutions worldwide. David Miller served as Mayor of Toronto from 2003-2010, where he transformed the city into a climate leader with a strategy rooted in innovation, inclusion, and opportunity. Now, as a Managing Director at C40, David is guiding cities toward a sustainable futu...

Across America, a quiet revolution is unfolding—autonomous electric mowers are gliding silently across parks, ballfields, and backyards. These zero-emission machines couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Lawn care and gardening account for 4-5% of the U.S.'s total greenhouse gas emissions—a staggering number for a single industry. Adam Sloan is the founder and CEO of Greener, which provides climate-friendly robots to landscaping companies that install them in customers' backyards. Hundreds are in the field. More on the way. Landscapers love the mowers because they free up time for more skilled tasks. Homeowners love them becaus...

Geothermal energy's roots in America run deep. Before the Wright Brothers took flight and the first Ford Model-T rolled off the assembly line, residents of Boise, Idaho, were heating their homes with geothermal energy. Today, Boise’s system heats over 100 buildings and six million square feet in the downtown core and even pulls off some supercool feats—like melting snow off sidewalks in the winter. In Boise, you can wash your clothes at a geothermal-heated laundromat, swim in a geothermal-heated pool at the YMCA, and buy flowers grown in a geothermal-heated greenhouse. Tina Riley manages Boise’s geothermal system—the larg...

After a determined two-year campaign, thirty Denver Public Schools (DPS) students convinced the School Board of Education to approve a climate policy to make the school district a national leader in climate action. LeeAnn Kittle, Executive Director of Sustainability for Denver Public Schools, now leads the charge, overseeing the Climate Action Plan, which already saves the district $5 million annually through carbon-cutting initiatives. LeeAnn joins host Josh Dorfman to discuss what it takes to guide a large organization toward ever-greater climate goals. Riley Loveland Falvey, Associate Director at the New Buildings Institute, also joins the conversation to discuss how districts...

Though over a hundred solar companies fled the state when its utility, Rocky Mountain Power, cut solar incentives four years ago, Utah is one of the fastest-growing states for residential solar—but with a twist. Many new customers also purchase grid-connected batteries. While others left, ES Solar, a local solar company, went all-in on solar-plus-storage. That move paid off; the company has installed 96% of Utah's residential solar-plus-storage systems. Zach Randall, ES Solar's VP of Sales, joins the show to share how his company has succeeded and why other states are playing catch-up to emulate Utah's success.

Sh...

Vancouver boasts the lowest carbon emissions per capita in  North America and consistently ranks among the world’s most livable cities. That's no coincidence. This week, Josh speaks with Gregor Robertson, former Mayor of Vancouver, who championed many climate innovations during his three terms in office, including installing North America's largest waste sewer heat recovery system—delivering zero-carbon space and water heating to over 6,000 apartment units. Josh is also joined by Lynn Mueller, founder of Sharc Energy, who invented the technology, which is now spreading to cities across the U.S.

Show Links:

Guests: Grego...

in 2014, Gundersen Health, headquartered in La Crosse, Wisconsin, became the nation's first health system to eliminate fossil fuels, transitioning to 100% local renewable energy. Today, Gundersen saves $5 million annually on energy, helping to control healthcare costs for its patient populations across 11 hospitals and 100+ clinics in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan (Gundersen merged with Bellin Health in 2022 to become Emplify Health). Alan Eber led the effort at Gundersen. Today, as CEO of Eneration, Eber's job is to show the rest of the healthcare industry how to pursue a clean, low-carbon, renewable energy future. He joins Josh to share the playbook. 

Supercool is a new conversation about extraordinary climate solutions that cut carbon and improve modern life. From tech innovation to policy implementation, host Josh Dorfman pinpoints the stories and data behind the low-carbon economy as it spreads to towns and cities across the globe.

The starting point for Supercool is, "What if solving climate change improves life?" 

The evidence is increasingly clear: Climate innovation enables safer city streets, improved education, stronger national security, more economic opportunity, and better health - the issues Americans routinely say we care about most.

Not all climate solutions a...